Slugger O'Toole

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Latest comments from Framer (see all)

Framer has commented 415 times (11 in the last month).

1. Comment on Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process?
   on 19 May 2013 at 3:26 pm

   So we know Joe Bowers’ mobile phone tone is the Red Army choir so why can’t we also be told of his Communist Party pedigree where the party worked tirelessly to keep the Labour Party out of Northern Ireland and restrict Protestant working class trade unionists and progressives to an anti-imperialist (i.e Irish nationalist) political position.
   Little wonder the class was leaderless.

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2. Comment on Team Jasil – that’s John and Basil – say: “Get off your backsides and vote for people that are trying to make a difference”
   on 13 May 2013 at 12:00 pm

   Cde – there is a huge difference between a government not running its full course in a non fixed-term parliament and that same government casually extending its term of office after the election that voted it in.
   The fact that there is no complaint from the liberal, human rights and chattering classes over such an outrage proves that there is no such thing as politics or freedom in Northern Ireland, just a process.
   If the Russian government, for example, extended Putin’s presidential term there would be an international outcry.
   If the Unionists had done it in the 1950s, it would be a crime against humanity, never forgotten or forgiven.
   Now and here, not a squeak from our well-paid and well-funded guardians of liberty.
   Amnesty? NIHRC? CAJ? QUB and UU Human Rights law schools? ECHR?
   Silence.

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3. Comment on Team Jasil – that’s John and Basil – say: “Get off your backsides and vote for people that are trying to make a difference”
   on 12 May 2013 at 9:49 pm

   Who says the Assembly will achieve an extension to 2016?
   What sort of democracy is it when the electorate votes on an entirely false prospectus, as to the length of the parliament?
   I suppose nobody cares here, certainly not in the rights industry, if politicians can extend their term, at will, and for no obvious reason. But they may not win the extension. Some people fight back against the NIO’s machinations.
   You heard it here first.

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4. Comment on Team Jasil – that’s John and Basil – say: “Get off your backsides and vote for people that are trying to make a difference”
   on 12 May 2013 at 3:59 pm

   All very well. A UK party for NI only, one that doesn’t want sucked into UK politics.
   A British party without the word. Plenty of people like that, although Alliance already has that element, discreetly.
   Not the UK Unionist Party then.
   Not the Tories.
   Remember however London (and Dublin) insist on one thing only, that we don’t entertain any notion of getting involved in UK politics.
   We must be devolved and thus have to concentrate on the insoluble problem of our differing nationalities.
   Which is why flags etc are, and will be, paramount. It’s about territory darling.
   So Jasil are just UK in NI, divvying up the billions provided by the UK taxpayer. Common sense there.
   But DUP/SF are perfectly capable of that, as well as the UUP and SDLP.
   It’s a perfect form of statism.
   So why did Basil and John ever join and pledge faith to the UUP?
   Was it just it a vehicle for their personal progress? They knew well it has a traditional base, not bigoted, but content in its culture. And now they can’t have it.
   There’s a word for that.

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5. Comment on Death of CSI: If we can’t have a strategy what about asking better questions?
   on 11 May 2013 at 9:19 am

   Comrade – The test will come shortly on shared education with the decision on the amendments being tabled by the UUP to the current Education Bill to end the teacher exception from NI and European fair employment law (and replace with something within Article 4 of the EU employment directive of 2000). Surprisingly SF voted for the UUP motion last month to end the exception and the field is now open, with the SDLP uniquely isolated. The open letter in support signed by a wide range of notables, including Alliance Party chiefs, proves the policy has key support in the community.
   The chatterati, not to mention the equality industry, have been notably silent on the matter perhaps because the motor for the change is coming from its 1960s predecessor of secular, progressive Labourism.
   Once the schools, secondary as much as primary, start mixing their labour force (and teaching assistants too) there will be a gradual and increasing flexibility that will enable smaller schools to link and some education to survive in an area like a village or small town, not to mention a softening of all the contact boundaries (and job opportunities for non-Christians).
   You heard it here first and I hope not for the last time.

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6. Comment on The struggle for abortion and other reform north and south is far from over
   on 6 May 2013 at 3:04 pm

   There remains another element that John O’Neill doesn’t delve into and that is the attitude of the Alliance Party on equal marriage and the SDLP on abortion.
   In the case of Alliance which has a policy of gay marriage only one of their eight MLAs could bring themselves to vote for the Sinn Fein motion (Anna Lo).
   The SDLP did manage a good voting score – for a change – on the gay marriage question, but despite an all-Ireland position it certainly wasn’t to be seen voting for Sinn Fein’s Marie Stopes motion.

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7. Comment on OFMDFM spokeswoman: “The Defamation Bill was never considered by the Executive”
   on 6 May 2013 at 2:32 pm

   What we need is a private member’s bill to go through Stormont as soon as possible and more transparency as to when NI is being left out of Westminster legislation.

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8. Comment on 2013 elections: the alienation of Freelander man
   on 4 May 2013 at 5:19 pm

   In short, and for the first time in a century, the Conservative/right wing in England is split neatly down the middle.
   London, the metropolitan elite, the public sector aristocracy, the chattering classes (BBC included) and finance in its many forms, not to mention the well-heeled and subsidised Celtic fringes, can no longer corral and subdue the grumbling English foot-soldiers and tax payers.
   It was the Tories under Major who brought EU extension to the communist east and Bliar who used cheap Polish labour to fuel the global boom which Brown said could never end. He then borrowed ever more.
   It’s all over. The ruling class of all three parties in our one-party state has been found out. The world has turned upside down and the consequences will be ever more extreme.

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9. Comment on Sinn Fein undermining the sanctity of marriage
   on 29 April 2013 at 9:48 pm

   It seems almost improper to point out but only one Alliance MLA voted for the party’s policy of gay marriage. Seven didn’t.

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10. Comment on Presbyterian Church Punishes Ford for Marriage Equality Vote
    on 29 April 2013 at 6:21 pm

    Anyone got chapter and verse on the Presbyterian Church’s opposition to decriminalisation in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s?
    And is it still their official position?

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